Want to know something funny? When leaving school today, my book bag's strap broke and everything flew out of my bag. Want to know something even funnier? My barely one month old laptop was one of the items that flew out and slammed into the ground several feet away from where I stood. Want to know something that is even better? I broke the keyboard, put a gash on the protective covering I JUST put on the cover of the laptop yesterday, and managed to cause part of the CD drive to pop off. This third laptop has a good future ahead in my protective hands! You know, when I was in an interview today for a project, I wasn't kidding when I said I think ghosts follow me.
This is just a notification - something I must post so that I keep the promise to myself to study. I am taking my AP and IB exams two or three after Easter Vacation, and Easter Vacation starts Friday. I have worked for four years to get where I am, and these final exams will determine whether I get my IB Diploma and extra college credits. Therefore, it is imperative that I study during the days I am off, which means I will have limited time to make updates here. I may try to finish the Card-Dex soon, but I am going to focus on school foremost, so forgive me if I do not update very often between now and the month of May. I am sure I will update at a reasonable pace, but I am just giving a notice in case I go into periods where updates are scarce. I hope everyone understands! The plus side of this is that when mid-May comes, IB, AP, and all of these crazy honor classes will finally be over, which means I will have virtually all the free time in the world to make up for what I missed in the previous month. After that remaining month of school between May and June, summer will come, where I will rush to get this site where I want it to be in time for college, and then after that, it will be time to go to college. This school year is ending fast...
Oh, and there has been almost zero Pokemon news. Seriously. What a better time to not have news than now?
I was accepted to my number one university choice! :D Quick update for today!
Anime News - The Pokemon Ranger DVD was released today, and the aspect ratio of the film was kept in widescreen, like its original Japanese release (and its airing on Cartoon Network). It seems as if there will be no more cropped, defaced full screen American Pokemon DVDs anymore (unless they were originally drawn in full screen, like all Pokemon episodes)! The DVD also contained a Diamond and Pearl anime commercial, revealing that the first Diamond and Pearl season will begin airing Monday, June 4th, on Cartoon Network. Look forward to it!
[April Fools Proof Shield] Remember how I said that with my luck, the university I want to go to will tell me on the last hour of the last day whether I was accepted or not? It has been almost an entire day since they were supposed to tell me at the latest. I hope they are not playing an April Fools joke on me like I did to all of you! [/shield]
Two April Fools Jokes Revealed - If you read the news story below, you would have seen the secret message I encoded into the second paragraph from the Thursday, March 29th news story - "WPM WILL FOOL U." No one figured out that I slipped a secret message into that paragraph because (a) no one was looking for it, and (b) the paragraph was contradicting the secret message. I am surprised that no one even thought to look for a secret message, considering how choppy the structure of the paragraph was and our past history with April Fools jokes. Anyway, here are the pranks that were pulled:
Forums - Towards the end of last summer, our forums were compromised by Turkish hackers. As I stated in several of my news stories this past week, school was extremely busy for me, with major assignments due all week. When I was working on my Armenian Genocide internal assessment for IB, I came across an Armenian website hacked by Turkish people, which reminded me of our own hacking, and thus, the idea for creating a fake hacking for our own forums. So, I made it appear that all of the mods were banned, placed a "hacked" message on the top of the forums (you had to scroll down to see the real forums, which some people did not even realize), and I told all of the moderators not to respond to any threads. The results? People were freaking out. Some even went to other forums in the Pokemon community and voiced their concerns. It was quite hilarious to see how some people reacted - I received 19 e-mails and several PMs.
Press Release about Worlds - This one was not as obvious of an April Fools prank because (a) it was believable, and (b) it was written to sound like a press release. PokePop contacted me on Saturday with the idea of both of us posting a fake press release to get everyone in the TCG community to believe that it was real, and I was excited with the idea and went along with it. He wrote the original press release and created the idea behind it, and then I heavily edited it to sound more realistic. I received so many instant messages about this press release that I had to block the entire TCG group on my buddy list at certain times in the day due to the massive amounts of messages bombarding me. Even the most experienced players were contacting me, astonished with the idea of Worlds ending in a type of "pre-release draft." I bet no one expected two websites posting the same fake press release, and that is why there was merit behind it and not as many people doubting its origins. :D
Until next year!
With April 1st coming up, please do not be fooled by websites playing tricks on you. People will surely try to present something fake with Pokemon in general. Most importantly, do not become fooled by new Pokemon! We all know that D/P is out now, so there surely cannot be any new Pokemon coming out anytime soon. If there is a new Pokemon to be revealed anytime soon, it will probably be in two to three years. Let's not go posting on forums and websites "Oh my gosh, a new Pokemon was revealed today in ____," because it will not be true, guaranteed, 100%, cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye. Lies will most likely be the only aspect of anything "suspicious" you find on April 1st, and I am sure many webmasters will have to sort it all out once it is over (not that I am guilty of making any April Fools jokes once or twice in the past, but seriously, it's old now). For now, PokeBeach will focus on the site plans I posted the other day. Our main objective is to finish the scans and the Modified Card-Dex between this weekend and the beginning of next week. Once those are done, we will move on to other items on the agenda. Let's hope that I can actually finish most of the site projects I promised this time! Unless I am bombarded with a project every night for the remaining two weeks, I should be able to get a few things done around here!
...or "did," now... x2. Details later.
The university I want to go to has not updated my status yet! XD Quick update for now!
World Championship 2007 Info - PUSA has just sent out a press release for Worlds 2007! You can read it below:
WORLDS TO KICK OFF NEW POKEMON TCG FORMAT
BELLEVUE, Wash.-March 30th, 2007-Pokémon USA, Inc., a worldwide leader in the trading card game industry, announced today that their brand-new Diamond & Pearl expansion will evolve the Pokémon Trading Card Game like never before! With a new generation of Pokémon in the Trading Card Game for the first time in four years, the annual World Championship tournament will celebrate this monumental milestone in a way like never before! Competitors from all over the world will compete in the tournament for the coveted title of Pokémon TCG World Champion in a tournament that will surely test the skills of all players involved!
To celebrate this Pokémon milestone, the World Championship will run in a special format showcasing the new gameplay of Diamond & Pearl! For the first half of the tournament, players will compete with decks constructed beforehand from their own cards. Players who are able to outplay the competition will then be given a special sealed box of Diamond & Pearl, from which they will build a customized 30-card deck for the final competition on Sunday. Only those who can discover the power of the Diamond & Pearl expansion and use their deck-building skills to create the perfect deck will surpass all competitors and be declared World Champion of the Pokémon Trading Card Game!
The Pokémon TCG World Championship will take place on August 10-12, 2007, in Kona, Hawaii. For more information, visit www.op.pokemon-tcg.com.
About Pokémon USA, Inc.
Pokémon USA, Inc., a subsidiary of The Pokémon Company in Japan, publishes the Pokémon Trading Card Game outside of Japan and manages the property outside of Asia which includes licensing, marketing and publishing activities, an animated TV series, movies, the official Pokémon website and the online retail site www.pokemoncenter.com. Celebrating its 10th worldwide anniversary in 2006, Pokémon was launched in Japan in 1996 for play on Nintendo's Game Boy® and has since evolved into a global cultural phenomenon. Pokémon was introduced in North America in September 1998 and today is one of the most popular toy and entertainment properties in the world. For more information, visit www.pokemon.com.
The suspense is building... One more day until the university I want to go tells me if I have been accepted or rejected. How appropriate is it that I will find out on the LAST day possible (probably the last hour, too)? I always seem to have such bad luck with everything. :p Even though there is nothing I can do now to change the past, I am still doing every good-luck ritual I can think of, even though there is no doubt it means anything.
Listen up, kids! You better do well in high school and you better not slack off! Even though it is four years long, those four years could determine whether you will go to a college that makes your life easy or easier. This website officially opened the summer before my freshman year, and now I am a senior waiting to receive his acceptance or rejection to his number one college choice. If I tried just minutely harder on a couple of items in high school, I probably would have easily been admitted to the places I wanted to go, but I threw some opportunities out the window and ruined my grades a few times during a few semesters (Math, Spanish - grrr). If you do not ever want to go through the stress I am going through right now, work hard in high school, and set into motion habits that will improve your education (studying, doing homework at certain times of the day, completing homework a day ahead, etc.). Also, have fun while doing it - my fun is / was Pokemon throughout high school, and it was a retreat from the chaos of school. I sacrificed any possible social life for this website and school, but whatever - I enjoyed doing it, and it helped me to survive high school (actually, I choose not to have a large social life because most people I know lack morals, and I only like to have a couple of "good" friends rather than 3,000 - saves a lot of drama :p). If tomorrow I get in to where I want to go, I will be overjoyed, but if not, I will live. If you want to go to a certain college, do not procrastinate, slack off, or ever not try your hardest (I know this is a little cliché, but it is the truth). Do your best, and always remember that you will make it through all of it eventually, even if you fail at certain points (unless a comet smashes into Earth and everyone dies).
I am off to bed! My future arrives in my inbox tomorrow! :D I will hopefully have an update for POKEMON (and not me :D) tomorrow or Sunday. This website is starting to feel like a blog... We'll see how things turn out...
This is just an "I'm alive" message. The amount of schoolwork I have received this week has been monumental - every week I find myself saying, "This has been the hardest week ever!" only to find myself saying the same exact phrase the following week. Unfortunately, it will not become any easier, with AP/IB testing coming up soon (and I know some of you have to take your AP tests as well, so you better study during Easter/Spring Break!). Right now, I am waiting to see if I was admitted to my first college choice, and it is extremely nerve racking. There are only two more days until they stop sending out acceptance letters, and they have been doing it for a whole month, so this is not so much of a "good" sign. We'll just have to see... If I am admitted to that college, it will only mean great things for me and this website, but if not, then I guess, "Life will go on."
With April 1st coming up, please do not be fooled by websites playing tricks on you. People will surely try to present something fake with Pokemon in general. Most importantly, do not become fooled by new Pokemon! We all know that D/P is out now, so there surely cannot be any new Pokemon coming out anytime soon. If there is a new Pokemon to be revealed anytime soon, it will probably be in two to three years. Let's not go posting on forums and websites "Oh my gosh, a new Pokemon was revealed today in ____," because it will not be true, guaranteed, 100%, cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye. Lies will most likely be the only aspect of anything "suspicious" you find on April 1st, and I am sure many webmasters will have to sort it all out once it is over (not that I am guilty of making any April Fools jokes once or twice in the past, but seriously, it's old now). For now, PokeBeach will focus on the site plans I posted the other day. Our main objective is to finish the scans and the Modified Card-Dex between this weekend and the beginning of next week. Once those are done, we will move on to other items on the agenda. Let's hope that I can actually finish most of the site projects I promised this time! Unless I am bombarded with a project every night for the remaining two weeks, I should be able to get a few things done around here!
Another quick update (well, not really)!
Site Plans - Over the past two or three weeks, myself and my mods (of the forum) have been talking about how we are going to improve PokeBeach between now and the end of the summer (we have been tossing around ideas back and forth). Our first step in the plan is to fix what I have broken (and no, I don't mean laptops). Our Strategist program has died because I have not posted any articles that the Strategists have painstakingly written, and there must be at least a dozen articles by now in line. The simple truth is I have not posted them because I do not have the time to HTMLize them and edit them anymore. So, what could we do to fix this? Simple! If you feel you have HTML capabilities, and are at least proficient with spelling and grammar (hopefully you are AWESOME at it!), we want you to help us out! Right now, we are looking for a person to permanently hold the position of "Head Strategist" at PokeBeach, which means that the person will not only HTMLize articles they receive (which is boring), but you will be in charge of the entire Strategist program (which is fun because you get to slash your whip at everyone and do stuff). So, if you feel you know your HTML, spelling, grammar, and can handle a huge program and everyone in it, send an e-mail to wpm@pokebeach.com, with the subject line "Head Strategist," and explain what you can do and anything else you want to brag about. Note that you also must have many RECENT (as in, the past 2 years) accomplishments in the Pokemon TCG, and we don't mean winning pre-releases. :p
Another thing we want to do is finish off the scans here. As you all know, we have probably 95% of all Pokemon TCG scans in existence, but we still are missing a few, especially with promos (although we do have a lot of those - they are just not up yet). Shakespeare, our master card scanner, has posted here what we need to be scanned, so if you want to help out, just follow his instructions and you will be credited if your scans are used (remember, they have to be EXCELLENT quality, which means don't use that $50 scanner you have if you are going to take the time to scan some of these :p). If you are to scan anything, make sure you post in the thread above so that multiple people are not scanning the same thing.
With us looking at what we are going to improve, I have enlisted the help of Meowth346 to actually re-code our entire Card-dex. I spent several hours on Sunday with him, basically describing to him what it should do, and he has already produced a beta version for me. It's not finished yet, but it will be by the end of this week, so look forward to a much better Modified Card-dex (hopefully by Saturday)! Other features for PokeBeach will be coming soon as well!
Also, if you feel the need to comment on any of the above, or even to make a PokeBeach suggestion, feel free to drop by this thread!
Quick update!
Diamond and Pearl Theme Decks - The images of the Diamond and Pearl theme decks have been revealed! The decks, as mentioned before, are named Terra Firma, Inferno Zone, and Royal Frost, and will retail for $11.99 each. Click the images below for larger pictures.
EDIT: Podcast is canceled now due to reasons beyond our control. We may try to do it again tomorrow.
Okayyyyyyy... The podcast took too long to record! We kept laughing, my brother came into the room, I couldn't stop laughing, we thought we were saying boring things and kept starting over... all-in-all, we did 12 re-takes. Since it took too long, we decided we'll just start over tomorrow around 6 PM, PST. If I have time, I'll make a blooper reel, but I doubt I'll have time this weekend. So, be in the chat room tomorrow around 5:30 if you want to be in the podcast. At the most, recording will take an hour, but at least you know we will not pump out a boring podcast that will make you fall asleep! Wait until you hear the reel... I almost wet my pants laughing so hard.
